Carbonite
by Tahyldras
Summary: A cry of denial as his blue blade erupts in his hand as he makes his choice. A single word floats through his mind; Padmé. Anakin swings his 'sabre. Lightning engulfs the Jedi Master, as a pain like no other tears through Anakin's soul. The Chosen One embraces the dark.
1. Chapter 1

"I need him!" Anakin's pleas fall on deaf ears.

"Please! Don't!" A deceptively-weak voice whimpers from the floor.

The purple blade swings down towards the apparently-stricken Sith Lord.

A cry of denial as his blue blade erupts in his hand as he makes his choice. A single word floats through his mind; _Padmé_. Anakin swings his 'sabre.

Lightning engulfs the Jedi Master, as a pain like no other tears through Anakin's soul. The Chosen One embraces the dark.

* * *

A gasp brings him back to consciousness. Opening his eyes, he is blinded by the pure white walls and the intense light above him. Slamming them closed, a wave of sensation washes over him; light and scratchy sheet above him, cold, hard table below.

Groaning, Anakin sits and rubs his face with his hands. His eyes spring open and he stares at his right arm. Where plastic and durasteel should be, there is now pale flesh. Using his left hand, he feels around what should be a prosthetic and finds muscle and tendon, instead of servos and wires underneath synthskin as he had expected for a moment. Sliding his hand up the arm, he expects to find some hidden seam or scar where his arm used to end, but found nothing but more unmarred pale flesh.

Looking around what looks like a medical lab, Anakin spots a small mirror on the wall. He swings his legs over the table to stand up, noting that the rest of him was as pale as his mysterious arm, almost as if he had never been exposed to sunlight. Something he got far too much of on Tatooine. Anakin stumbles to the mirror and stares into a reflection that he barely recognises. Pale and gaunt, with a shaven head. And no lightsabre scar over his right eye.

The sound of a door opening brings his attention to the two clone troopers entering the room. Anakin only has time to not the markings on their armour before their stunners blast him back into unconsciousness.

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

 **Yup, it's another Anakin in Carbonite story. There will be differences between the others I have read, and hopefully it will be liked.**

 **Unusually for me, it isn't actually complete yet. Normally when I write, I make sure that the story is finished before I start uploading as I can't stand when people are left waiting for months or even years for the next chapter, if the story isn't abandoned. But I am hoping that not wanting to let anyone down will provide an impetus to actually complete this story, which has been hanging around my head for some time. Next chapter up in a week's time!**

 **Many thanks,**

 **Tahyldras**


	2. Chapter 2

Luke felt the ripples in the Force the moment he drops from hyperspace. Was this why he was asked here? Intrigued, he takes a moment close his eyes and explore the disturbance. There was a sense of familiarity to it, and a brightness that almost felt as if the Force was _singing_. The only thing the Jedi could equate it to was the first time he saw his little nephew, Ben.

Resolving to investigate whether or not it was why he was called, Luke opened his eyes and guided his personal X-Wing to the planet before him. Until the battle the year before, this sandy world was almost completely unknown to the galaxy, but now there was barely a bar or cantina where you wouldn't find some drunken spacer claiming to have fought at the Battle of Jakku.

* * *

Luke was baffled. In all his years fighting the Empire and its remnants, he had never heard of a facility like the one he was now in. Row upon row of upright, rectangular devices. Dozens of carbon storage units, each one holding a single prisoner of special importance to the former Emperor.

"It's taking a while, identifying them and determining if it is safe for them to be revived. Or even if they should be, there are some real pieces of work in this facility. None of them are listed with their names, only numbers. And some have been frozen since before the fall of the Old Republic." Luke was briefed by a New Republic Intelligence colonel, who was holding out a datapad for the Jedi. Luke gave it little more than a cursory glance before asking;

"I don't mean to be rude, but why was I called here? I can see the clear importance of your work, but I have pupils to train."

"Well, sir, we found another carbon unit separated from the rest. There was no way to open the door electronically, and the door itself was reinforced with Mandalorian iron." Luke cocked an eyebrow at that. Mandalorian iron, or beskar, was extremely rare and expensive. It was especially valued for armour, given its strong resistance to energy weaponry. Particularly lightsabres. "And when we managed to cut our way through, we found no means of identification at all."

"Show me." Luke orders. The colonel nods, and leads the newly-minted Jedi Grandmaster through a nearby corridor, despite Luke technically having no authority to give commands. As he follows the officer, Luke can feel he is approaching the source of those ripples in the Force. The disturbances ramped up to a fever pitch as they rounded a corner. Before them was a rough-cut hole. Beyond the remains of the now-clearly Force-activated door was a single carbonite slab, the frighteningly familiar occupant of which was clearly unconscious when he was frozen.

 _Thankfully_ , the Jedi thought, remembering Han's pain reverberating through the Force. Luke slowly approached the frozen man, reaching out to touch the carbon coated face, as the Force got louder and louder, inch by inch. The moment before Luke's fingers make contact, the Force is almost deafening in its intensity, only for it to fall completely silent as his fingers touch the cool surface. He waited a heartbeat, before he was flooded with images and sensations.

 _The familiar heat of Tatooine's suns and the safety of a mother's arms. The call of a Tusken raider echoing over pain and rage. Kind, brown eyes and a stomach-churning love. Blue and white headtails dancing through droids, a thousand identical faces at their backs. A purple lightsabre spinning through the air, and the finality of a choice._

Luke steps back with a sharp breath.

"We need to wake him up." He tells the colonel.

"That is what we were going to ask you, whether or not you believe he should be. I shall make the arrangements." She replies, before turning and speaking to her aide.

"In the meantime, colonel," Luke says, "Is there anywhere that I can go where I will not be disturbed? I must consult with someone."


	3. Chapter 3

The next awakening was much more gentle than the last. First, the unmistakeable antiseptic smell of a hospital, followed soon by the rhythmic beeping of a heart monitor. His throat felt like he had swallowed sandpaper, and his stomach was roiling. This time when his eyes opened, he wasn't greeted by the harsh white of the lab, but the gentler hues of a private hospital room. A window presented views of a sandy world, suspended in a background of stars. Much more wary this time, Anakin extends his senses before moving too much, so as not to alert any more of the Kamino Guard clones. But he finds no sign of any clones. There are clearly two armed beings just outside his door, but a distinct sense of boredom emanating from them rules out them being clone troopers. Continuing his Force-aided exploration, he touches being after being, finding a ship full of essentially good people and a strong desire to help saturating the crew.

Finding no danger, Anakin starts to withdraw his senses, but a flare in the Force alerts him to a presence that becomes blinding when focused upon. The underlying familiarity is quickly overshadowed by the easily recognisable presence next to the brightness. His old master; Obi Wan.

* * *

"Luke" Obi Wan's voice calls him from his meditation. Opening his eyes from his calls for advice, Luke looks up to the faint, blue form of his first teacher in the ways of the Force.

"Ben" Luke smiles, standing up and facing the youthful-looking apparition. The old Jedi Master had the same hair and beard as he did in life, but it was fuller and darker. Gone were the weary lines across his face and slightly stooped stance, replaced with the visage and posture of a powerful Jedi in his prime. Luke was intrigued the first time he saw the old hermit present himself as such, and was told that this was what Obi Wan looked like before everything started to go wrong. What he looked like the last time he truly felt like a Jedi.

"He is struggling again." Obi Wan answered the question before Luke could ask it. "Knight Bridger brought a new pupil to the Academy; a young Togruta girl. All your father could see was his former Padawan." Luke simply nodded, knowing well the war with the Dark his father fights on a daily basis.

"We still don't know what happened to her after Malachor. Ezra and the Ghost crew insist that as Father survived the collapse of the Temple, so did Ahsoka, but we have seen no sign of her in over a decade." The two are silent for a few moments, both contemplating the trouble Anakin has staying in the Light.

"So, young Luke," Obi Wan starts after he judged they had spent enough time dwelling on what currently could not be helped. "What did you wish to speak abo-" Obi Wan stops mid-word, as an impossible Force signature winds its way through the ship. "It is not possible" he mutters to himself as the unmistakeable Force signature of his old Padawan briefly touches his own.

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

 **Well, a chapter a week lasted about as long as I hoped it wouldn't.**

 **Tahyldras**


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